Tesla reportedly launches insurance brokerage in China
“We’re building a great — like a major insurance company," Elon Musk said on an earnings call earlier this year.
One year after Tesla launched its auto insurance in California, the company is expanding its business to China, reported multiple news sources.
According to China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Tesla formed an insurance brokerage with a registered capital of 50 million yuan ($7.2 million) in Shanghai’s Pilot Free Trade Zone, where the electric carmaker’s Gigafactory 3 also is located. Additional details about the China venture are unknown.
CNBC reported that during a company earnings call earlier this summer, Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn said: “Where we want to get to with Tesla Insurance is to be able to use the data that’s captured in the car, in the driving profile of the person in the car, to be able to assess correlations and probabilities of crash and be able then to assess a premium on a monthly basis for that customer. And what makes this very exciting for us is the amount of data that is available with the customer’s permission to use is not available on any other product or any other vehicle in the world.”
Kirkhorn also said that Tesla hopes to offer insurance in other states later this year, pending regulatory approvals. The company began offering auto insurance to its vehicle owners in California in August 2019.
“We’re building a great — like a major insurance company. If you’re interested in revolutionary insurance, please join Tesla,” CEO Elon Musk said on the call.
Musk is beginning to make a name for himself as a sort of maverick with his insurance endeavors. He recently decided to opt-out of renewing Tesla’s D&O insurance policy for the 2019-2020 year and “personally provide coverage substantially equivalent to such a policy for a one-year period, and the other members of the board are third-party beneficiaries thereof,” Tesla said in an SEC filing.
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